Keyword: ny2009

Gingrich: I was wrong to endorse Scozzafava By Eric Zimmermann - 02/01/10 03:42 PM ET Newt Gingrich says he regrets endorsing Dede Scozzafava in the hotly contested primary for the NY-23 congressional district in November. Scozzafava was criticized by many national Republicans for being too liberal. She eventually dropped out of the race and endorsed Democrat Bill Owens, who eeked out a victory. "She turned out to be a huge disappointment, and she turned out not to be frankly a loyal Republican," Gingrich told an interviewer in New Hampshire this weekend. The former speaker added that conservatives who criticized his...

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn got angry and tearful at a news conference Thursday when asked about the failure of the gay marriage bill in the state Senate. She took exception to questions that she could have done more to stop lawmakers from voting down the legislation. "There are 60-plus people in that room, and they're the ones with a job to do," she said, referring to the senators. "They are the ones who failed, not anyone else." Quinn is openly gay and says she looks forward to the day when she can marry her partner, but she...

What should Diedre Scozzafava want to accomplish by Sunday's appearance on Face the Nation on CBS? Is it just another post-election 'poor poor pitiful me' about being beat up by tea party thugs led by Dick Armey, who will be on the same show? Well, I hope not. Ms. Scozzafava knows politics aint bean bag and there is something for all to learn from the NY23 GOP meltdown. In retrospect, which is a lot like hindsight, Ms. Scozzafava was not the best hope for North Country Republicans and her selection by a handful of county chairs was another example of...

The New York State Catholic Conference reports that homosexual-rights activists received a setback by state Court of Appeals rulings last week. According to the New York State Catholic Conference, the New York State Court of Appeals did rule in favor of the plaintiffs in Godfry v. Spano and Lewis v. NYS Department of Civil Service regarding the state’s recognition of same-sex “marriages” from other states. However, the Catholic Conference’s director of communications, Dennis Poust, characterized it as a defeat for the plaintiffs. Basically, the ruling said that the state civil service could give all the rights of married (heterosexual) couples...

Dear Friends, Today, Tuesday, November 24, 2009, it is with a heavy heart that we declare this election over. We will formally end this election and not ask for a recount. This was a difficult choice to make because so many people have put their faith, hope and aspirations into our campaign. Yes, there seem to have been many vote counting problems, missed vote counts and, as was recently reported by the Gouvernour Times, software problems in the computerized voting machines. Despite these incidents, I do not believe the voters of NY-23, or New Yorkers in general, would be well-served...

New York voters aren’t very optimistic about the financial solvency of their state, but they're also sending their elected representatives mixed signals. They oppose budget cuts in a couple key areas but are against tax hikes even more. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state finds that 56% of voters say it is at least somewhat likely that New York will be bankrupt by the end of the year. Twenty-one percent (21%) say it is very likely. Thirty-seven percent (37%) believe that outcome is unlikely, but only nine percent (9%) say it is not at all likely. An...

Dear Fellow Conservative, As evidence surfaces, we find out that reported results from election night were far from accurate. ACORN and the unions did their best to try and sway the results to Obamacare supporter Bill Owens. I was forced to concede after receiving two pieces of grim news - - down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night - and barely won my stronghold in Oswego County. Get every vote counted in NY-23On Election Night, the information we received was far different from what we received this week! Rest assured, they will not succeed,...

Doug Hoffman picks up 20 votes so far in 23rd Congressional District recanvass By Mark Weiner / The Post-Standard November 17, 2009, 7:25PM Washington, D.c. -- Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman picked up a net gain of 20 votes Tuesday â€” far from what he needs to win â€” as the count of absentee ballots began in the 23rd Congressional District. Hoffman received the tiny boost after Madison, Oneida and Hamilton counties said they finished counting their absentee ballots Tuesday. The majority of the sprawling district â€“ eight other counties â€“ will finish the process this week. But if early...

Hoffman 'unconcedes' in N.Y.-23 House race By Jordan Fabian - 11/16/09 06:34 PM ET Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman has "unconceded" in New York's special House election after reports that the vote margin between him and Rep. Bill Owens (D) has narrowed. Hoffman conceded the race on Election Night after learning he trailed Owens by 5,335 votes. But the Syracuse Post-Standard reported last week that the margin had shrunk to 3,026 votes after recanvassing. Hoffman appeared on conservative commenatator Glenn Beck's radio show this afternoon. Beck asked the him if he would "unconcede." "Yes, if I knew this information at...

GOUVERNEUR, NY - Despite the fact that Bill Owens has already been sworn-in and has voted on crucial legislation in the House of Representatives, he may not have actually won the NY-23 Congressional Special Election. Several errors were made during the initial vote counts. Over 2,000 votes for contender Doug Hoffman were not counted in the preliminary results, narrowing the current vote gap to less than 3,000 votes between Democrat Bill Owens and Conservative Doug Hoffman. The errors were discovered during the standard vote recanvas that has been underway since November 4th. The largest error occurred in Oswego County where...

Democrat Bill Owens delivers his victory speech at his headquarters in Plattsburgh last week. Owens declared victory after Conservative nominee Doug Hoffman conceded the 23rd Congressional District race election night. Now recanvassing shows the special election has narrowed to a 3,000-vote difference, and will be decided by a count of absentee ballots. The Associated PressDemocrat Bill Owens delivers his victory speech at his headquarters in Plattsburgh last week. Owens declared victory after Conservative nominee Doug Hoffman conceded the 23rd Congressional District race election night. Now recanvassing shows the special election has narrowed to a 3,000-vote difference, and will be decided...

Who is Dede Scozzfava? ... "This is my party, too," she insisted. "There are a lot of moderate people - Republicans, like me - and I'm hearing from an awful lot of them. And I think the Republican Party needs to know if they don't have room for us and they don't want us working with them, we're going to find a way to work against them." She acknowledged that many in the GOP would differ with her support for abortion rights and same-sex marriage. But she maintained that she approached those views from a conservative vantage point - a...

Gay rights activists are looking to a possible vote to legalize same-sex marriage in New York State on Tuesday as a way to drive a national campaign that opponents say has lost momentum. Five U.S. states have already legalized gay marriage -- Iowa, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont -- but earlier this month voters in a sixth, Maine, chose to repeal such a law, which was due to take effect in September. Forty U.S. states have laws banning gay marriage. New York's Democratic-controlled State Assembly passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in May, but the proposed legislation faces a...

Everyone and his brother has opinions about what happened on Tuesday, but not all assessments are equally correct, just as not all of the descriptions of the contests, while they were in progress, were equally on the mark. What were some of the mistakes and mischaracterizations during the campaigns and after the voting? One of the worst, I thought, was the widespread characterization of Dede Scozzafava, the Republican nominee in New York’s 23rd district, as a moderate. I realize that those of us in the media use that term to distinguish certain Republicans and Democrats from their more ideologically consistent...

Reacting to media reports that Nancy Pelosi “secretly” dispatched a top lieutenant to meet with Dede Scozzafava before the Assemblywoman’s shocking endorsement of Bill Owens, Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long called for a Federal Election Commission investigation of any “illicit inducements” that may have been offered in exchange for Scozzafava’s support. “It a matter of public record that the Scozzafava family company is in financial difficulty. All her public statements about her withdraw mentioned money problems. Nancy Pelosi is desperate to win this seat,” Long said, adding: “Can it be a mere coincidence that Dede demand a face-to-face meeting, then...

Having been in the position of watching my favored candidate stumble badly in an endorsement session while a more liberal Republican alternative hit all the right notes, I reserved my opinion on the goings-on in the recent Congressional race in New York's 23 Congressional District. Now that it is over, I have concluded that while the local Republican Party leadership's endorsement of Dede Scozzafava may have been a what-in-the-world-were-they-thinking moment, I suspect that many would now be saying, "Can't they do any better than this?", had they had endorsed Doug Hoffman from the beginning. While Hoffman may have hit most...

GOUVERNEUR, NY - Congressman-elect Bill Owens was sworn in at noon today. Owens indicated in a press release released shortly afterwards that he was now in favor of the the "Affordable Healthcare for America Act" bill in direct contrast to his earlier position during the election campaign. According to Politico.com, Mr. Owens assured voters that he felt the public option had no place in the health care reform bill. Contrary to that position, Mr. Owens now indicates that he intends to vote in favor of the bill even though it now contains a public option. UPDATED: A spokesman for Congressman...

A New Grassroots Political Organization Makes Its Mark by Deal W. Hudson Â Â 11/06/09 The election results of November 2 were not merely the spontaneous reaction of Republicans to the bad economy and liberal excesses of the Obama administration. The four pro-life, conservative GOP candidates in Virginia and New Jersey were elected in a groundswell of religious and social conservatives, many of them independent voters who had voted for Obama only a year ago. A new grassroots organization played a major role in getting these voters to the polls -- the Faith & Freedom Coalition was founded by Ralph...

Less than a day after Tuesday's election for the 23rd Congressional District, the fallout is smoldering hot. Angry with the way Republicans handled their candidate selection, a Franklin County legislator says he will strongly consider running for Congress or State Assembly next year. "The supporters of Dede should be ashamed of themselves," Paul Maroun, a Franklin County legislator from Tupper Lake, said in reference to Republican candidate Dierdre "Dede" Scozzafava. THE CHOICE Maroun was one of nine people Republicans were considering as a candidate when the race was set last summer. The seat opened up after President Barack Obama named...

... don’t believe the fact that Hoffman is a social conservative was the reason for his loss, but when it comes to priorities, Simon makes a point worth considering: Hoffman’s capital “C” Conservative campaign tried to separate itself from the majority parties by making a big deal of the social issues. He was all upset that Scozzafava was pro-gay marriage, seemingly as upset as he was with her support for the stimulus plan. The majority of Americans are conservative — not just on matters of fiscal policy, but also on many social issues. After all, in the last presidential campaign...

The big topic of discussion this week is the role conservatism played in the wins in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere, as well as in the loss of New York’s 23rd congressional district. Recent polls show that many more Americans self-identify as conservative than liberal, so it should not be terribly surprising that so many conservative candidates won Tuesday. It should not even be terribly surprising that some won big. Though if that is the case, what is the explanation for Doug Hoffman’s loss in New York? There are many possible reasons — including the spectacle that the race turned...

Contrary to some reports, the Republican sweep of Tuesday's governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia is not a direct rebuke of President Obama, according to Leo Hindery, managing partner of InterMedia Partners. Indeed, a Democrat won New York's 23rd Congresional District for the first time since 1872. (Yes, 1872.) But even Hindery, a former advisor to President Obama and John Edwards' senior economic policy advisor, can't deny the Democrats have stumbled. "The lesson is simple: It's the economy, stupid," Hindery says. "Healthcare reform is an important issue...but the priority was misguided. I'm a strong advocate of universal healthcare but...

With independent voters favoring GOP candidates in New Jersey and Virginia, many in Congress wonder whether they'll lose electoral support themselves if they stick with Obama on controversial issues. Reporting from Washington and Madison, Wis. Even before voters went to the polls this week, moderate congressional Democrats were anxious. Would the swing voters who coalesced around Barack Obama almost exactly one year ago stay with the Democrats or defect to the Republicans? The answer came Tuesday night as Republican gubernatorial candidates swept to power in New Jersey and Virginia, with the help of large packs of self-described independents. Exit polls...

WASHINGTON – It was a big election night for Republicans overall. But their lone disappointment – the loss of a New York congressional seat in a crossfire between moderates and conservatives – could portend struggles next year for GOP leaders. Channeling the Tea Party-inspired energy is a particular headache for Dallas Rep. Pete Sessions, whose costly effort to keep the New York seat was a casualty of the civil war. "There's a huge revolt going on in the country against the political establishment," said former Virginia congressman Tom Davis, who once held the challenging political job that Sessions now has...

People are buzzing about this online but I’m not sure why. “I regret deeply that she was chosen,” he says of Scozzafava in an apparent reversal of his prior support. Except it’s not a reversal: He admitted to Andrew Wilkow way back on October 21 that she’s not the person he would have nominated. His endorsement was always strategic, to support Republican leaders at the local level and dissuade third-party challenges next year. Why Republicans in a district where there’s no primary should defer to party leaders instead of rallying behind their preferred candidate is a question left unanswered, but...

In New York's 23rd Congressional district, Democrat Owens finished with 49% , making him the winner of a plurality of the votes. What's being overlooked by Republicans and conservatives is that Scozzafava, despite having withdrawn from the race, still garnered 6% of votes, with Hoffman getting 45%. I'm guessing that most of Scozzafava's 6% were absentee ballots which had already been mailed before she dropped out. Other votes could have come from die hard fans of hers, or voters who simply didn't know she was no longer in the race. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that Owens won with...

ALBANY -- Bill Owens unexpectedly turned back an aggressive challenge by Conservative Party upstart Doug Hoffman to win an upstate congressional seat yesterday, becoming the first Democrat to represent the area in more than 100 years. Owens, an attorney and retired Air Force captain, was leading by 3 percentage points. Hoffman conceded shortly after midnight. "We stood up against two major parties that had a lot of money, but we got this far on determination," Hoffman told supporters gathered in Saranac Lake. "I want to really thank everybody here and around the district and around America who stood up for...

After weeks of ups and downs and unknowns in the special election for the 23rd congressional district of New York with conservative candidate Doug Hoffman losing to Democrat Bill Owens (one that which played out much like a political telanovela) analysts can agree on one absolute: we love drama. This race was reality television at its best with all the necessary ingredients: an underdog (Hoffman), a train wreck (Scozzafava), celebrity influence (Palin) and an attentive national media. And like many reality shows, after you've watched it you feel like you learned almost nothing. So what did we learn about NY...

Yes, socially conservative Republican candidates prevailed last night in the big races—the gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey—but it was the special election for New York's 23rd Congressional District that had become a national symbol for the battle between religious conservatives and the GOP establishment. In recent days, it was the race that the big Christian right groups like the Family Research Council and Susan B. Anthony List and the movement's favored politician, Sarah Palin, had become most outspoken about. But after forcing the socially liberal Republican out of the race, the right's candidate, Doug Hoffman of the Conservative...

Conservatives owe NY-23 candidate Doug Hoffman immeasurable gratitude. He overcame impossible odds (single digits just a month ago) to come within two points of defeating Democrat Bill Owens. Hoffman had zero name recognition. National Republican Party officials dumped nearly $1 million into the race on behalf of radical leftist GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava, who then turned around, endorsed Owens and siphoned off 5 percent of the vote with her name still on the ballot after she dropped out. Conservatives’ money went to pay for specious attack ads against Hoffman run by the NRCC like this. Conservatives’ money went to...

The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens. This is a huge win for conservatives. “Whaaaa. . . ?” you say. There are two big victories at work in New York’s 23rd Congressional District. First, the GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives or will win with conservatives. In 2008, many conservatives sat home instead of voting for John McCain. Now, in NY-23, conservatives rallied and destroyed the Republican candidate the establishment chose. I have said all along that the goal of activists must be to defeat Scozzafava. Doug Hoffman winning would just be gravy....

Their candidate lost in the end, but for many in the rapidly expanding "tea party" movement, this fall's special House race in upstate New York was a "training ground" that taught its cadre of loosely organized grass-roots activists how to challenge both major parties and has only whetted the movement's appetite for the 2010 midterm elections. Tea party foot soldiers fueled Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman's meteoric rise that drove liberal Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava out of the race, giving the anti-tax, anti-spending activists their first real victory. But the ballot-box clout of the movement remains a question mark after...

Look, I know we all hate to see Hoffman go down tonight, but it's hardly a defeat. Conservatives made a stand and sent a defeat to RNC and the country club elitists by driving their candidate out of the race. True Conservatives like Fred Thompson and Sarah Palin scored a victory over the RINO establishment and wannabe Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich. It was the first step for Conservatives in taking back the Republican party. Let's keep making that stand to the RNC that we will no longer settle for the moderates and Democrat lite candidates they want to shove...

America has changed, and you have helped. Although we did not succeed in winning this election, we have succeeded in making sure political parties and special interests no longer take the people for granted. I believe we have sent a powerful message and laid the groundwork for future conservative campaigns. I congratulate Bill Owens on a hard won victory. In our tradition of free elections, our country continues. And although Bill Owens has won, I believe America is turning the page to a new dawn. The ideas of freedom, sound fiscal management and citizen government have sprung back into our...

<p>ALBANY, N.Y. - Democrat Bill Owens had an early lead in a special Congressional election in northern New York that grabbed national headlines in its final days as it highlighted divisions within the Republican Party.</p>
<p>Owens led with 51.4 percent to 43.7 percent for Doug Hoffman, a member of New York's Conservative Party, with just 29 percent of precincts reporting in New York's 23rd House district.</p>

SARANC LAKE, N.Y. – The mood is getting darker at NY-23 Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman’s election party. Results from Jefferson County–Republican territory that John McCain carried–show Owens in the lead. And the Syracuse suburbs–Madison, Oswego, and Oneida County–are not showing the blowouts that early polling suggested. The first results from Oswego show Hoffman at 2800, Owens at 2000, and Scozzafava at 324. The final Siena poll had Hoffman leading Democrat Bill Owens by a margin of 51 percent to 28 percent in this region. I asked Hoffman’s spokesman Rob Ryan for a reaction, and he suggested that it was...

The withdrawal of Dede Scozzafava from the special election for Congress in upstate New York has predictably set off another wave of media-led hand-wringing about the health of the GOP. (See here [1] and here [2], for example.) These stories are like crack for reporters, especially those with a hard-left slant. It is always framed as a battle between ‘conservatives’ and ‘moderates,’ but the focus is actually much narrower. To Big Media, conservatism comes in only one flavor, social conservatism, namely anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage and a smattering of other issues that would fall flat over canapés and seltzer (liberals...

Here is video of NBC's Chuck Todd reporting on the elections to be held today, and saying it is "a big test for President Obama as head of the Democratic Party." But Todd's report tries to paint the New York 23 race as evidence of "Republican division" and "infighting," and he says Democrats are "giddy" about what is happening! That's called spin! Democrats are not giddy about the prospects of losing in New York or anywhere else. But look for this to be the "saving face" line that will be used by the Mainstream Media tonight as results come in....

The willingness of MSNBC on-air commentators to engage in political hackery for the Democratic Party knows no boundaries - as indicated by the latest charged hurled at former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's "Countdown," who once called conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, "big mashed up bag of meat with lipstick," almost on a nightly basis attacks Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and has also regularly drubbed Palin, is now charging her with sexism. On his Nov. 2 broadcast, Olbermann accused Palin of forcing former GOP congressional candidate Dede Scozzafava out of the race for New York's 23rd Congressional...